The Halfway Point, chapter 10

[tori_angeli]

And here we find out one reason this story has the title it has.  Betaed by the awesome Aubretia Lycania.

Four footfalls to every inhale, the muscles worked in his brother’s legs and arms as he jogged through the sewer.

Four footfalls to every exhale, crimson mask tails clinging to damp green flesh, which glistened in the dim light of the tunnel.

The breathing was a form of meditation.  Leonardo knew that Raphael, even when out of shape, would not be this breathless after such a short run, and he certainly would not be making noise while breathing. The rhythmic inhales and exhales formed a percussive pattern with his footfalls, with the swish of liquid in the bottle of juice Raphael held in one swinging hand, with the splash of moisture against concrete and random drops of condensation falling like bells to the floor, a small symphony of distractive sound.  Raphael did not want to be thinking about something.  He was pushing himself forward, distracting himself with the sounds and the movements so that he could keep himself from considering.  The repetitive serenade became completely mindless, and almost as distracting for the turtle following Raphael as it was for Raph himself.

Leo focused on the sound, using it to drive himself forward rather than to numb his mind, and to direct himself to Raph’s location.  It was only two days into his search for House, and finally, he had caught Raphael leaving the lair, presumably for wherever he was hiding the gangster.  In addition to a bottle of grape juice, Raphael was carrying, oddly enough, a handful of straws.

Four footfalls to each inhale, four to each exhale, and Raphael suddenly came to a stop—as did the rhythm.  He had reached a conjunction with another tunnel. 

He dropped the straws and juice and sank into a sitting position on the floor, covering his face with his hands and gulping deep, shuddering breaths.  Leonardo did not make a move, but watched Raphael in utter silence from the shadows as he approached unnoticed, while his once-proud brother placed his emotions on display, unknowingly voyeurized, unknowingly violated with the eyes.  Fire lit Leo’s face, embarrassed for Raphael, and suddenly he was ashamed of his spying.  Raph looked so vulnerable in the most open show of feeling Leo had seen since they were children, a show he had not meant for any to see, stripped of all dignity and reason and trying to gather strength only to stand up—let alone to walk.

Leo wondered what House had said to him, if Raph was so afraid to face him.

Raphael suddenly swiped up the dropped items and furiously shoved himself to his feet.  After two more breaths, he swerved to the side and walked briskly into the adjoining tunnel.  Leonardo only followed when his brother had been swallowed by the shadows.

Leo hesitated at the entrance, peering in and being met, to his surprise, by two glimmers of light winking back at him.  As his pupils adjusted, he could see two camping lanterns, dim as though running low on batteries, set on the floor at the end of the tunnel on either side of a large pillar.  The dim glow illuminated pale skin;  a large man gleamed in the sheet of tan luminosity he knelt in, hands and feet in front of him, cuffed together, and a thick rope crossing his broad chest and belly several times.  The gangster looked as though he had seen better days.   Multicolored bruises speckled his drawn face, his stubbly shaved head lolling against the stone pillar even as his eyes followed Raphael, who breezed by him and picked up a fallen chair.  Raph didn’t look at House until he’d flipped the chair into position and sat on it.  Then he leaned against his knees and stared forward, burning a mark into the gangster with his eyes.

“I give ya credit for gettin’ your hands up front,” he said gruffly.  Leo squinted at his suddenly collected brother, an image forming in his mind of what Raph must be talking about.  It was a truly paralyzing way of tying someone, their hands and feet bound together behind them.  House must have struggled for hours to bring his limbs up front, where they would receive proper circulation.

House’s face wrinkled in a grim sneer as he gave a tired, ironic chuckle.  “Probably saved me from getting my legs amputated—‘nless you wanna tie me back the way I was.”

Raph scoffed.  “You’d like that.”  He set the bottle of juice on the floor, selected two straws and pinched the end of one.

House’s sneer turned into a full grin.  “Yes, I would,” he admitted.  “I’d be a hero over at Headquarters twice over.”

Raph stopped suddenly, eyes rising sharply to meet his captive.  Leo grit his teeth hard, fists clenching, toes curling against the concrete as his body flashed cold.  House met Raph’s eyes briefly, then chuckled.  “Didn’t tell you about that, did I?”

Raph tensed, but said nothing.  Leo didn’t blame him—he didn’t want to think of Hun or any of their other enemies knowing about what had happened, either.  Raph slid the pinched end of the straw into another, making a long tube.  “Broughtcha somethin’.”  He unscrewed the cap of the bottle of juice and placed the straw inside the bottle.  “It’s your breakfast, lunch, an’ dinner for however the fuck long I decide.”

“Why thank you,” House said pleasantly as though he were a guest at a little-known relative’s Thanksgiving dinner.  “Since you’re giving me liquids, I assume you’re planning at least to let me up so I can take a piss.”  This was said with a threatening note in his voice, the comfortable power House held making itself known in this thinly disguised request.

Raph, never impressed with power, snorted as he pushed himself to his feet.  “Piss on yourself,” he sneered, handing the bottle of juice to the bound gangster.

House reached past the juice and seized hold of Raphael’s wrist, yanking him inward hard enough to snap the turtle’s head back.  As though automated, Leo’s hand flew to the hilt of one sword.  Before he could draw, Raph tensed and snapped his arm towards House’s thumb, breaking the gangster’s grip and stumbling backwards.  He slammed the juice on the floor before the gangster’s feet.  House’s face wrinkled in amusement and he gave a deep, resounding belly laugh as though Raph were a child too precious for words.  Leo’s blood ran hot, and his grip tightened around the hilt of his sword.  The second House gave him an excuse, any excuse…

Oh, he wanted even the smallest excuse to do it.

But Raph was already storming past him, far too distracted to notice his presence.  House was alone.  Leo clutched the hilt of his sword, staring at the gangster, whose eyes still glinted with amusement.  He wet his lips, heart pounding, heat rising in his blood and drying his mouth, then released, his fingers uncurling from the sword-hilt, heart rate slowing, muscles unraveling.  He watched the captive through narrow eyes, then set off after his brother.

After all, he wasn’t doing this for House.

 

Splinter’s voice, a timeless lullaby, soft, fragrant beneath his fingers, earth, a hollow grave.  The one dream he had that was still untainted.  He fell into the shadows.  Earth snowed upon him, sprinkled by unknown hands, and when there was nothing but dark, he floated to the surface, free, and raised his eyes to see…

…Worlds and universes, plains of existence known and unknown, all waiting for him, all beckoning and holding their arms open for him.  Multitudes of possibilities, and he hesitated.

And while he hesitated, every darkness he had buried alive seeped from the earth, escaping its grave and flying toward him—he could feel it wrap around his arms, restraining like crushing fingers, and its knees dug into his thighs, parting his legs, and it hurt him, there, and it laughed with Jezimar’s voice.

He opened his eyes and saw asphalt.

 

A groan, tired, sick, and frightened, broke Leo’s sleep like a sheet of frail obsidian.  After a moment of bewildered panic he couldn’t fathom, he heard it again.  Raphael.  Something was different about tonight, and he couldn’t pinpoint why.  Leo tore back his covers and rolled out of his low bed, padded across the cool floor to the doorway.  From Raph’s room he could hear sharp, hitched breathing.  He pressed the door open and peered in.

Raph was sitting up in bed, eyes wide and vacant, every muscle in his body coiled and tense, shaking, his breath shuddering in and out between his parted lips.  A cold needle pierced Leo’s heart, and he quickly stepped into the room and sat on the edge of the bed opposite his brother.  Raph’s pupils had constricted to pinpricks, his face drained; as though sensing something changing about the room, his unseeing eyes fluttered and searched, darting about sightlessly, head frozen in place as though he were afraid to move.

“Raph,” whispered Leo, heart cracking against his ribs.

There was no response but a slight widening of the eyes, a frightened reflex without recognition of the voice.

“Raphael,” he whispered again, “it’s Leo.”

Raph shrank back a little, obviously disoriented.  Leo wet his lips.  It was dark.  Raph couldn’t see him.  Raph wasn’t convinced that he was there.

How vivid it must be, whatever illusion plagued him.

“I’m here,” he whispered in restrained desperation, unable to take his proud brother’s paralyzing fear any longer.  He reached forward with two steady hands for Raph’s shoulders, intending to prove himself real.  Halfway there, he froze.

Touching him would make it worse.  Raph would be frightened of the touch.  He would draw away or attack him, or denigrate into utter panic.

Then what?

“Raph,” Leo said gently, trying to capture his brother’s eyes with his own, “I need you to reach out and touch my hands.  You’ll find me.  I’m here.”

Confusion.  Doubt.  Fear.  Raph did not believe him.

“Raph,” Leo said urgently, desperate to break the terror that encased him, “trust me.  Reach out.  I’m here.”

Raph shook his head slowly, and Leo’s heart sank.  Would it always be this way, him reaching, Raphael withdrawing, like a Renaissance painting, forever stretching and forever hesitating?  It was the life they had lived since that horrible night, when he had been unable to aid his brother the first and most important time.  The only thing he could do now was watch the terror in Raphael’s eyes and wish he could take it himself.  It would be easier than watching it ravage his brother, night after night.

Then, amongst the fear and doubt, a look of fire, of determination, darkened Raph’s face.  One shaking hand twitched on the covers, then slowly crawled forward.  It lifted up, then suddenly struck out, grabbing, seeking, missing, his glazed eyes searching, not finding.  His breath caught.  His jaw set, and his hand came closer.

Three fingers touched, clasped, intertwined.

Raphael found him with his eyes, and everything fell away.

One sharp breath exploded from Raph’s chest, and his face crumpled for an instant before smoothing out.  His head bowed, his eyes slid closed.  Leo, relieved, pulled him firmly into a half-hug, and Raphael’s arms curled around him, his body trembling with vague, nameless fears.

“Fuckin’ pavement,” murmured Raphael, still half-asleep.  “Flashlight…hurts…it hurts…”

“Shhhh,” Leo hushed gently, rocking his brother like a child and rubbing his carapace reassuringly.  “It’s gone now.”

Meaningless gasps and noises, then, words that brought another chill to Leo’s heart.  “It’s my fault.”

“No,” Leo said immediately.

“I didn’t even fight ‘em off, I fuckin’ deserved it.”

Leo paused, disturbed.  “Did I deserve it?”

“Didn’t happen to you.”

“Yes it did.  Same time it happened to you.”

“Leonardo?”  Leo’s eyes snapped to the door, where Splinter stood, leaning against his walking stick with a concerned look on his face.

“He’s okay, Sensei,” Leo said softly, catching his own breath as the tightness eased from his chest.  Even as he spoke the words, he knew them only to be half-true.

Splinter seemed to understand this, hobbling up to Raphael and touching his shoulder gingerly.  “Raphael,” he said softly, “I will make you more of the tea I gave you the other night, if you wish.  But you must tell me.”

A moment of shuddering and hesitation, and Raph nodded.  Splinter’s eyes darted up to meet Leo’s.  He mouthed the name of an herb carefully, and Leo nodded softly in understanding.  He transferred Raph to Splinter’s embrace and pushed to his feet to obey.

Leo left Raph to the comforting arms of their father and closed the door behind him.  Now that the slight shock and fear had passed, his blood burned him.  His proud brother, shivering and whimpering in his arms, and he unable to comfort him.

Hurts…it hurts…

It’s my fault.  I fuckin’ deserved it.

He had all the excuses he needed.  One man who had committed a crime against his brother still had not paid the consequences.  That would change tonight.